Dear Storage Wars Texas: Stop Encouraging Sexual Harassment

Have any of you seen the A&E show Storage Wars? Dan and I started watching the original version, but after a while, we found that we preferred the Texas version of the show. To be sure, it's not the greatest show on TV, but it is amusing to see the unique items that are found in the storage lockers.

Sadly, after the last couple episodes, I am thinking about removing the show from our playlist. This is not because the show is boring or obviously staged (which many times it can be – and yet I still enjoy it). No, the reason I want to stop watching is because of the newest buyer introduced onto the show. His name is Matt Blevins, and he is an obnoxious, sexist prick.

Matt’s introductory video on YouTube starts off with clips of him insulting women about being business owners instead of housekeepers! Why the FUCK would you allow someone like this onto your TV show? And yes, I just swore on my blog. If you are going to allow sexual harassment/discrimination on your TV show, then I sure as hell am going to use the correct words to describe how fucking stupid you are!

Now, I know these shows are staged a lot, if not completely; and the character, Matt, could be a different person in real life. But knowing this fact does not make me feel any better about what is being spoken to women on the show – in fact, it makes me feel worse!

If this character is staged, you have to ask yourself WHY a network would knowingly create someone who is bad mouthing women. Not only that, they are writing their script so that the only people on the show who are telling him that he is being a sexist prick are the women themselves (if they even do that). All the other people are just looking the other way. How does this represent A&E? Do they want to be known as a network that looks the other way when sexual harassment/discrimination is happening?

What horrifies me even more is the knowledge that other women and young women are watching this show, seeing this happen, and observing the fact that no one is kicking Matt off. How is this going to encourage them to stand up for themselves and expect to be treated with respect as equals?!

I refuse to accept that this kind of behavior is just supposed to be ignored and accepted as “TV drama”. Instead, I am writing this blog and calling BULLSHIT on what is being allowed to air on A&E’s Storage Wars Texas. I will not look the other way (like the people on the show do). It is not right, and it will never change until people have the guts to speak up and demand that it be removed.

My letter to the show:

Dear Storage Wars Texas,
I have enjoyed your show since you began airing it. However, I cannot continue watching if you allow the character, Matt, to harass and objectify women. It is wrong, illegal, and you are encouraging this behavior by letting it happen on your show and by not stopping it.
Sincerely, Erin.

What John Cusack’s Birthday Reminds Me Of

On my feeds this morning, a blogger posted that it was John Cusack’s birthday. (Don’t worry; I’m not going to start gushing about how hot he is or anything like that.) After reading the announcement, the first thing that came to my mind was The Journey of Natty Gann, which is one of my favorite childhood movies. Right up there with Disney’s Robin Hood, Newsies, and Anne of Green Gables.

How does the mention of John Cusack bring this movie to mind? Well, he is the supporting actor in it. However, being the person that I am, I never made the connection between him and his character until my late teens. The character who caught my attention and my real love in this film was Natty Gann.

For me, Natty Gann was more than an entertaining character. She was the visual proof of what I wanted to be. She had all the qualities that I hoped to have myself, and she was one of the first influences to show me that it was OK to be me. Some of the traits that endeared me to Natty Gann are:

• She was a tomboy (with a cool newsboy cap).
• She was independent and resourceful.
• She loved animals and had a wolf for a best friend.
• She survived in the wild.
• She was brave enough to fight for what she wanted.

To this day, I still attribute my love of dogs (and wolves) to watching this film.

In case you have never seen this movie, here is a quick synopsis:

Natty Gann is an energetic, street-smart kid of a single father during the Great Depression. Because work is so scarce, her father leaves Natty under the care of their landlady while he goes to a job in Washington state.

A couple weeks go by, and the landlady assumes that Natty’s father has abandoned her and tries to turn her over to an orphanage. However, before they can catch her, Natty runs and starts traveling the railways to find her father in Washington.

Throughout her journey, Natty meets different people who either help or hinder her. One friend she makes is a wolf that she rescues from dog fighters. The other friend she meets is John Cusack, who helps her out of a few tight spots.

The Journey of Natty Gann was more like a life-changing experience for me. I still have my original VHS of the movie, and I will never throw it away, even though I also have it on DVD and will never own a VHS player again. LOL

If you have never seen this movie before, you should definitely check it out. You may not enjoy it as much as I did, but that is fine. It is still a great movie!

Oh… and Happy Birthday to John Cusack. :) You are a great actor, and I really do enjoy your films.

Play Ball!

National Park Stadium
Baseball and softball were my first favorite sports. As a kid, I never got tired of watching The Sandlot, Rookie of the Year, The Natural, and A League of Their Own. I don’t know what it is about this game, but it seems almost magical to me. Over time, I have grown to love other sports, but baseball and softball will always remain at the top.

Unfortunately, I never really got to play on a team growing up (which will be different if I ever have a daughter), but I played whenever I could jump in on a game. My favorite position is left or center field. I love watching the big hitters try for a homer, only to have me snatch it out of the air. :)

This past spring, a co-worker heard about my love for baseball/softball and invited me to join our company softball team. Of course, I said yes and asked if Dan could join as well. From that point on, we got to play weekly Saturday morning games. The company team is a good mix of guys and girls and is a blast to play with. We just finished our last week of games and are talking about putting together a team for the fall season!

In addition to playing softball this year, I have also attended a number of Nationals games in DC. It has been years since I have gotten to see this many live baseball games, and I have seriously missed it!

Dan and I jumping in excitement to see baseball
If you have never been to the National’s stadium, I definitely recommend a visit if you are in the area. It is a fun park with lots to see and delicious food to partake of. The park has even gotten reviews from local newspapers and magazines for its taste and variety in food. My favorite food stops so far have been Hard Times Café and the Shake Shack.

Ignite Your Natitude!
Of course, the Nationals, lovingly called the Nats by locals, are the best reason to visit the park. DC has needed a good, competitive baseball team, and the Nats have been having a great year. While I am still learning many of the players’ names, I was able to pick out a favorite on my first visit to the stadium – Bryce Harper, #34. It was an easy choice because he plays my favorite positions, he is very talented, and he seems to have a real love for the game.

Harper running home
You will probably hear me mention many other sports that I love and enjoy, but baseball/softball definitely top the list!

Moonrise Kingdom and Other Summer Movies

Apart from the sunshine and visiting pools and beaches, one of the best things about summertime is the movie theater! Everyone knows that the best movies come out during the summer, when everyone is on vacation or wishing they were on vacation. Some years have been very disappointing, but 2012 has an impressive lineup.

Dan and I have already started working our way through the list of movies that we want to see in the upcoming months. Some of these movies come out after the summer months, but I am going to include them anyway. Here’s our list (as of May) of movies that we want to see:

• Avengers – seen
• Dark Shadows – (already out of theaters, so I’m going to catch this on DVD)
• MIB3 – seen
• Moonrise Kingdom – seen
• Rock of Ages
• Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
• Ted
• Brave
• The Amazing Spider-Man - possibly
• The Dark Knight Rises
• The Bourne Legacy
• Expendables 2
• Skyfall
• The Hobbit
• Les Miserables – possibly
• The Great Gatsby

I am sure this list will change as time and money permit. :) For the movies we have already seen, here are some quick reviews, in case you are still deciding whether to watch them or not.

Avengers:
Another superhero classic. We both enjoyed all the action scenes and comic book humor, and I think they did a good job bringing so many main characters into one movie. There are also lots of good-looking characters for both girls and guys to enjoy. :)


MIB3:
Dan is a huge MIB fan! This latest installment was well done and almost had me crying at one point. There were lots of laughs and comical/creepy creatures. I thought it was consistent with the previous movies and very enjoyable to watch.


Moonrise Kingdom:
This film is about two kids who run away together while everyone else on their hometown island is frantically searching for them. You may not have seen a preview for it, because it is only playing in select theaters. Do not let this discourage you from seeing it though! It is filled with hidden wit and humorous situations, as well as having an all-star cast (including Edward Norton, Bruce Willis, Tilda Swinton, and Bill Murray!).


One of my favorite things about the film was the cinematography. Each setting was detailed and beautiful, and I seriously want to buy the house in which the runaway girl lives!!


Of all the movies that Dan and I have seen recently (both in theaters and at home), Moonrise Kingdom is defiantly our favorite! For anyone who is curious to learn more, I am imbedding the preview below:

Lisbeth Salander is a Badass

By now everyone has heard of the book “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, but just in case you have been living in a fallout shelter for the last seven years, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is the first book in the Millennium series written by Swedish author Steig Larsson. The series includes two other books: “The Girl Who Played with Fire” and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest”. The first book was originally published in Sweden in 2005, and it was republished in English in 2008. Since then, the series has become immensely popular, spreading like wildfire through book clubs and movie studios.

There have been many summaries of these books, so I am going to avoid writing another. Instead, I am just going to point out what I did and did not like, without giving away too many of the fun discoveries.

Because I do not have much time to read, I actually listened to all three books, picking them up on CD from my local library. The audio reader was very easy to listen to. His voice was not boring or annoying, and he made a good effort to give each character an individual voice. If you are not able to sit down and read all three books, the audio version is a nice alternative.

The Millennium series is a fun, suspenseful series that you will read in every spare moment until you are finished. There are tons of interesting, well-developed characters that I either loved or loved to hate. I found the plot to be complex and detailed, which is the most important element of a book to me. Larsson told multiple stories simultaneously without losing the strength of any of them!

By far, my favorite character was Lisbeth Salander. She undoubtedly had some personal faults, and she had an appalling childhood. However, I love how she held onto her standards and morals, and I admire her skill at bringing “justice” to anyone who wished her harm. To put it simply, Lisbeth Salander was Bad Ass. Cheering her on was an unconscious compulsion as I listened to the books.

While I thought that all the books were great reads, I did not like how different the first book was from the second two. All three books contain many of the same characters, but the plot of the first book is extremely different from the last two. This makes it hard for me to see them as a three-book series.


In addition to reading the books, I have also seen both the Swedish and the US movie productions of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”. My personal favorite was the original Swedish version, because I felt that it was more true to the book and that the casting matched my imagination’s depiction of the characters. Another benefit of the Swedish version is that they have already created movies for each book, while the US versions are still in production. However, if you do not want to read subtitles, the US version is still fun to watch.

“Somebody Sat on Me Again”

There were times growing up when I wanted to be invisible. I liked nothing better than to float under the radar. I never got in trouble, but I never got any recognition either. Looking back, I think part of it was my shy childhood personality, and I think part of it was probably the environment where I grew up (a cult is not exactly the nurturing environment that develops individuality).

I was so good at being invisible that when I took the private school’s carpool van, the driver constantly thought he forgot me. Years later, when I watched Princess Diaries for the first time, I was completely able to relate to Mia when someone sat on her:



In complete contrast to my childhood personality, I gave a presentation at work today about how my team could become more visible in our company. This is such an important topic in today’s business world, and one that I am learning about first-hand. For the meeting, I focused on five main methods for gaining visibility:

1. Speak up – volunteer for projects and suggest new ideas


2. Find and share pertinent information – talk or post about an interesting article or blog related to your job


3. Attend optional meetings and events – be seen in the room and ask the presenter a question


4. Join a group or start a trend – attending classes at the company gym had more benefits for me than just getting in shape! I learned how easy it was to make friends when suffering together. LOL


5. Learn how to announce a job well-done – see it as a way to share ideas that were successful and gain insight on other opportunities to build off from an effective project.

The presentation went really well, and I had fun preparing and delivering it. Though, I think the best part was seeing my co-workers getting excited about how much we contribute to the company and how we can gain more recognition for what we do.

In case you did not notice, the shy girl from my childhood has slowly changed. I have been lucky enough to find a job where I can contribute and be a part of something important and relevant. It took me years to find it, but the searching and the jobs/classes in between helped prepare me to no longer be the invisible girl I used to be. :)

Let’s Get Together, yeah, yeah, yeah…

Wow, was President’s Day weekend a busy one! Sitting at my new dining room table, my eyes keep wandering to the enormous bookcase in the living room, and the song “Let’s Get Together” starts echoing through my head. If you do not remember this song, it is from the movie The Parent Trap – the Hailey Mills version, not the horrid 90’s remake.

To give you some context on why a bookshelf reminds me of a Hailey Mills song, it is because Dan moved in this weekend! Hurray!! No more four hour trips to and from Richmond! (No offense to all my friends and new family down there, but I am sure you all understand the joy of being closer to your boyfriend/girlfriend.)

The biggest part of the move took place on Saturday. Luckly, Dan and I had been bringing boxes up during our visits for the last month, so all that remained were big pieces of furniture and the odd and ends. With a little extra help from my dad and Dan’s parents, everything was inside the townhouse in under an hour. :D

With the move complete, we spent the rest of the weekend unpacking and organizing. For two people with very different design styles, our belongings mix very well. The living room bookcase is one example. With a little patience and endless chanting of the alphabet, Dan and I managed to combine our DVD collections and fill five of the bookcase’s six shelves. That’s a lot of DVDs, right?! The other incredible thing is that on those five shelves, there is not a single duplicate movie. (Heehee… I think we have a lot of movies.)


Looking at that bookshelf covered in DVDs, I cannot help but smile while the lyrics “Let’s get together. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why don’t you and I combi-ine.” play through my head. I am delighted and fortunate to have a boyfriend who is happy to combine his styles with mine.

“Let's get together, yeah yeah yeah. Two is twice as nice as one. Let's get together, right away. We'll be having twice the fun…”


If you want to see a clip of the song, check out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxtyAC59AeE.

Rubber

There exists a very strange movie called Rubber. Have any of you seen it? It really does exist. Dan had me watch it recently, and I am still confused about my feelings for the film. My first impression was that the movie encourages stalking, mass murder, and obsession – and yet I felt compelled to watch it until the end.

Rubber is about a tire named Robert. Yes, I said a tire – as in the circular objects which your car rolls around on. This specific tire has the ability to be “alive” and move around of its own accord. This is already sounding strange, right? It gets stranger, just wait.

Robert the tire is obsessed with a beautiful young woman and is following her, while a group of random people follow/watch Robert from a distance. As he is stalking the woman, Robert learns that he has telepathic powers that enable him to blow things up, including any human or animal that annoys him. (This is where the mass murder comes in) Eventually, someone starts noticing all the dead beings, and the cops are called. What happens after this is really too bizarre to attempt describing, so you will just have to watch it for yourself to find out the ending. That’s what I had to do. :)

My expression throughout the movie went from being:

To the look a dog gives you when they see something strange:

I cannot recommend this movie, because it was too weird. However, I will say that you will experience some very unique emotions while you watch it, and afterwards, you will not exactly regret watching it.

Happy Viewing!